Christmas gift guide | Events

Cricket Australia’s big hope to appeal to younger fans enters its second year. The national T20 competition brings colour and excitement some find lacking in the traditional game. As with most forms of cricket, Australia has been quick to take to T20. The Sydney Sixers in their magenta outfits are one of the top sides in the world, having won the 2012 Karbonn Champions League at Johannesburg’s New Wanderers Stadium.

The Sixers meet cross-town rivals the Sydney Thunder on December 8 at the Sydney Cricket Ground after a Melbourne derby between the Renegades and Stars launches the season on Friday.

For those who still love the game’s long form, Australia will play a three-Test series against Sri Lanka starting in Hobart on December 14-18 before moving to Melbourne and Sydney on December 26 and January 3.

Tickets: from $20. cricket.com.au

Racing’s first big carnival of the year is the Magic Millions at the Gold Coast Turf Club starting on January 9 for more than a week of festivities, with the racing highlight on January 12 boasting more than $4 million in prizemoney.

Aligned to the races are one of the major horse sales programs of the year. Unlike other racing carnivals, the Gold Coast races are for horses bought through the Magic Millions sales.

So if you like the thought of collecting the $2 million on offer for the two-year-old Classic, you need to head to one of the company’s sales and pick up a promising yearling. The Queen’s granddaughter, Zara Phillips, is the Magic Millions ambassador.

The Gold Coast can be busy in January, so it pays to book accommodation and flights early. But the holiday atmosphere makes it one of the most relaxed events on the year’s racing calendar.

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The revitalised A-League stages one of its biggest grudge matches when Sydney FC and the Western Sydney Wanderers clash at Allianz Stadium in Sydney on Saturday, December 15. Soccer seemed to be lurching to another crisis last year when a lot of the comments were about A-League shortcomings.

But the arrival of a batch of overseas imports, including Italian maestro Alessandro Del Piero at Sydney FC, has underpinned a surge in TV ratings. Sydney FC, though, has to share the harbour city stage now with the Wanderers.

The A-League is benefiting from a number of rivalries, including the Melbourne Victory v Heart derbies and the Central Coast Mariners and Newcastle Jets clashes. Tickets: up to $95 for Sydney FC home game. footballaustralia.com.au

Melbourne will stage the $30 million Australian Open tennis championships between January 14 and 27.

As the facility is close to the city, in the sporting precinct that contains the MCG and AAMI Park, you can walk to the tennis from your CBD hotel. But check if there is a shuttle bus. It gets very busy in the city at this time, so book early.

While the big finals matches can be expensive, ground passes can be purchased for $34. Officials are keen to retain the Australian Open’s status as the only one of the four grand slam events to be played in the Asia-Pacific region – partly why they boosted prize money by about $4 million for 2013.

Singles champions from last year, Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka, should be back to defend their titles. Both were in fine form during 2012 , finishing on top of their respective rankings.

Tickets: $34-$394.90. australianopen.com

Brisbane will host the official launch to the 2013 NRL season at the fourth annual All Stars game on February 9. For the first three years the match was played on the Gold Coast but the league decided to shift it to the bigger capacity of Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.

The match pits a team of the game’s finest indigenous talent against the best of the NRL from across the 16 clubs, as decided by the votes of fans.

February also features the return of the AFL with its annual pre-season competition, the NAB Cup. It starts on February 15 at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium. Tickets: $20-$90. nrl.com/allstars